To every pound of the best fresh butter allow a pound or a quart
of superfine flour. Sift the flour into a deep pan, and then sift
on a plate some additional flour to use for sprinkling and
rolling. Wash the butter through two cold waters; squeezing out
all the salt, and whatever milk may remain in it; and then make it
up with your hands into a round lump, and put it in ice till you
are ready to use it. Then divide the butter into four equal parts.
Cut up one of the quarters into the pan of flour; and divide the
remaining three quarters into six pieces, [Footnote: Or into nine;
and roll it in that number of times.] cutting each quarter in
half. Mix with a knife the flour and butter that is in the pan,
adding by degrees a very little cold water till you have made it
into a lump of stiff dough. Then sprinkle some flour on the paste-board,
(you should have a marble slab,) take the dough from the
pan by lifting it out with the knife, lay it on the board, and
flouring your rolling-pin, roll out the paste into a large thin
sheet. Then with the knife, put all over it, at equal distances,
one of the six pieces of butter divided into small bits. Fold up
the sheet of paste, flour it, roll it out again, and add in the
same manner another of the portions of butter. Repeat this process
till the butter is all in. Then fold it once more, lay it on a
plate, and set it in a cool place till you are ready to use it.
Then divide it into as many pieces as you want sheets of paste;
roll out each sheet, and put them into buttered plates or patty-pans.
In using the rolling-pin, observe always to roll from you.
Bake the paste in a moderate oven, but rather quick than slow. No
air must be admitted to it while baking.
The edges of paste should always be notched before it goes into
the oven. For this purpose, use a sharp penknife, dipping it
frequently in flour as it becomes sticky. The notches should be
even and regular. If you do them imperfectly at first, they cannot
be mended by sticking on additional bits of paste; as, when baked,
every patch will be doubly conspicuous. There are various ways of
notching; one of the neatest is to fold over one corner of each
notch; or you may arrange the notches to stand upright and lie
flat, alternately, all round the edge. They should be made small
and regular. You may form the edge into leaves with the little tin
cutters made for the purpose.
If the above directions for puff paste are carefully followed, and
if it is not spoiled in baking, it will rise to a great thickness
and appear in flakes or leaves according to the number of times
you have put in the butter.
It should be eaten the day it is baked.